Tag Archives: Champions of Battle

Sons of Sword: Tales of Glory – Lost and Found #034

Oakwood Factory:

In the factory control rooms, a select group of Commoner peasants piloted training-bots.  Each pilot was in a separate room suspended above the floor by machines and harnesses.  The rooms were amazing as the wallpaper in each room doubled as a wrap around monitor showing the world around the bot that each pilot controlled.  Holographic projectors displayed items closer to the bot adding to the illusion.  The pilots even wore special suits applying pressure to the pilot as the bots made contact with their surroundings.  Every footstep, every button press, even the grip on a rifle was felt by the pilots.  A pilot only needed to act naturally and a bot would follow suit.  

However, it was unnatural to act such a way in those conditions.  Some pilots were naturally better than others.  Among the most efficient were Mahari Gan and Dusk Yi.  These two worked so well on the “sticks” they were trusted with the flying speeder patrol.  They usually worked as store clerks so the steep increase in today’s excitement and pay were welcome.

Today was all good fun, for them.  They could do so much more with the bots than they could in reality.  The experience was like being super heroes.  It was also a great mental challenge because everything moved so fast.  The strength, speed, and special abilities of the training-bots meant little if the pilots couldn’t keep up on the sticks.

Driving the speeders with their bots, the two clerks conducted routine scans of the area.  Apparently, a student was training and their expertise was needed.  With the scanners to aid them, it didn’t take long for them to spot an anomaly in the area.  The sudden discovery interrupted their playful banter.

Dusk was using their intercom link to tell a riveting story of how his Character had defeated three others with little effort in the Champions of Battle game.  Mahari was commenting on the fact that he was attacking a low level city when he interrupted himself.

“Why is that dumpster hot?”

“I wouldn’t know that,” was Dusk’s answer.  The story was fun but distracting.  They were there to do a job and it was time to get back to work, “Want to ask it?”

“Why not?”

With little effort, the two guided their speeders into the alleyway that held the odd dumpster.  They kept a close watch on their surroundings as many fatal traps often accompanied a decoy.  Nearing the ground, they both scanned the ground checking for electronic signals and trip wires.  

Seeing the ground was safe, they set the speeders to hover and jumped a decimeter to the ground.  The hydraulic legs on the training-bots absorbed all of the ground’s shock easily.  It made more than a little noise though.

Dusk was first to prepare his rifle while the Mahari prepared to open the dumpster with one hand rifle grasped and ready to aim in the other.  Now ready, there was only the issue of timing.

“Count of three,” Mahari whispered.  

“Just open it,” Dusk shouted.  Role Playing was all fun but, there was no need when no one else could hear them.

“Fine.”

The door flipped open.  Heat rushed out.  No one was inside.

At this realisation, Dusk spun around immediately and scanned the ground.  The other settings on his rifle checked for more than just heat.  

Looking through the scope, Dusk noted something all too important.  “Footprints,” he commented.  

At that, they both jumped back up to their speeders.  Dusk followed the prints careful to fly high enough not to disturb them.  Meanwhile, Mahari signal the factory computer about the anomalies and prepared to follow Dusk.

The hunt was on.

#1Lost and Found #33 – Lost and Found #35

Champions of Battle: AD7 – Awakening #038

Sanity – Training and Equipment District

With the help of Sanity’s training facility, AD7 relearned some of her old skills quickly- really quickly.  The whole ordeal was quite different than she had expected.  Back in her day, both a physical and mental strain was needed to relearn techniques after so long.  However, the “training” she’d received up to this point had been more like unlocking old consciousness with a computer.  

The change made sense to AD7 given the new technology of the day.  She had quite literally been brought back to life from a burn corpse.  So a little memory reconstruction was more than plausible.  Unfortunately, the machine and its magic couldn’t do everything.  Although she knew how to do some of her more basic moves, only brief portions of her past came to light.

Instead, AD7 was reminded of more changes due to the past.  Her old pride and joy, the Engineering Talent Set, was no more.  Instead of building odd machines, there was a Mech Talent Set that used mechanical suits.  She could make and alter another suit.  However, she already knew that her friend Eighty-Seven would get very jealous.

Currently, AD7 was taking a break from the whole training ordeal.  Her pulsing head had long since told her it was time to stop.  She had followed Keyanna’s excited suggestion to look at weapons and walked with her to their next location.

Keyanna seemed to know more about AD7 than she knew about herself.  That in itself was disturbing, but Keyanna only got more and more excited about sharing what she knew as they talked.  She even knew everything about AD7’s old weapon, more than what was comfortable.

As they talked, AD7 tried to be polite and maintain a bit of normalcy, but Keyanna made this very difficult.  Instead of walking beside her and talking normally, she hopped sideways while facing AD7.  AD7 could see the excitement in her eyes with a single glance but tried to look foreward.  Honestly, Keyanna was so giddy that AD7 was surprised she hadn’t already been tackled by a screaming fan.

“Past videos had shown you using weapons like this,” Keyanna smiled and almost screamed like a fangirl.  

AD7 managed a look at Keyanna.  She looked down to see that Keyanna had a large weight in each hand that she was quite proud of.

“It’s strange,” Keyanna started again. “They’re very famous but very difficult to duplicate and are very, very hard to use,” she paused to take a breath, “but we managed it.”

AD7 took what was a replication of this famous icon.  This “weapon” was nothing more than, two large and very heavy spherical weights connected by a chain that had to be at least more than a decimeter long.  One of the weights had an enchant on it that looked fiery and explosive, slightly slippery and warm to the touch.  The other weight seemed a little heavier and was much colder.  

The chain was very thin- thinner than it should be.  She measured out a centimeter of chain and decided to give it a test swing.  One swing was all it took for her to judge the weapon.  She was certain that if forced to use this thing as a weapon, she and many others around her would really need a healer.

“I don’t think I can use this,” AD7 said simultaneously disappointed and frustrated.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

“I… I can’t use this.”  AD7 was on the verge of tears.  She had relearned her talents.  She knew this weapon was used with her talents.  It felt familiar but incredibly unwieldy.  Why couldn’t she use it!?

“We’ll have to try something else then.”

“No,” AD7 sternly corrected, “the weapon is fine.  I’ll just have to learn to use it again.”

#1Awakening #37 – Awakening #39

Champions of Battle: The Very Best – Opportunity #035

The Bome City Shuttle Port was relatively far from the hospital, but Duard’s constant irritations led the cab driver through the fastest possible routes.  Duard had no interest in seeing the sights or even the locals.  Only the shuttle port mattered.  Consequently, it took much less time to reach than usual.  Of course, his next destination was still a mystery but he was definitely leaving this land.  

Being a booming city, Bome’s port was always busy.  There were more shuttles parked than one would care to count.  Every space was full.  A few shuttles were preparing to launch while others hovered and spun in the sky preparing to land in the soon to be empty spots.

Each shuttle had a graphic noting their next stop.  After leaving the cab, Duard leaned on a pillar to think and make a call.  The shuttles’ graphics animations were slightly entertaining.  Duard watched as the graphics described their next destination while writing out the city’s name.

The call was to Champion’s Chronicle Headquarters.  If Duard was to make any impact on events, he had to be informed.  A lot may have changed in a day.  

It was just after hour seventeen so in Bome City it was well into evening.  However in South Coast, it was a very uncomfortable hour of morning .  Understandably, it took more than a few rings for Humberto to answer, but he was there.  The Chief was always there.  As expected, Chief Meng was a little grumpy this time of day; or night.  However, he knew about all the important stories at the Chronicle.  He seemed unusually glad that Duard was up and about and shared the story freely.

The tale of Juquan and the BigBad Crew moved quickly as Humberto only spoke in important facts.  Apparently they partied and cheated the casino.  After that, the story took a few unexpected turns.  The strangest turn was the reporter Humberto used to follow them.  Duard’s keen memory often kept him from asking for the same information twice, but Chief Meng’s selection was simply inconceivable.

“There has to be a mistake,” Duard corrected with unhideable disbelief, “Brisa?  My Brisa?”  Duard had to stop and lean the communicator to his ear.  There was no way he had heard that part right.

“Yeah Brisa Gan, your errand girl,” the Chief said with certainty, “She hasn’t called in for a while though.  She’s either doing fine or she’s dead.”

“What do you mean dead?”  He asked the question without thinking.  This whole situation seemed like a road trip horror story, “Where did they go?”

“West Drop.”

“West Drop!”  Duard knew for certain that his errand girl hoped to be as good a decent reporter.  However, following the BigBad Crew was too much for her as was going to West Drop.  The two facts together made absolutely no sense.   “Why not throw her to the bear-frogs while you’re at it!”

“She was there, and she could walk,” Humberto shouted back reminding Duard that he could not at the time, “If you want to catch up on the rest of the story, I suggest you go there and talk with her.”  Those were the Chief’s words before ending the connection.

Things were going terribly.  Sadly, things were probably much worse than Duard believed.  His plan to destroy Jaquan hung on a thread.  How could he find evidence to damage Jaquan if he couldn’t find Jaquan.  However, he was glad to have called.  He would look a fool if he had walked into this with the information he had only yesterday.  

Duard rushed to his private craft.  There was no time to lose. He should be there in a few hours.  

He scoffed at the idea of Brisa doing fine on anything.  All she’s fine for is getting my tea and sandwiches.  If she went to West Drop, chances are that she’s already robbed and stranded.  I’ll have to clean up whatever mess she’s found herself in.

#1Opportunity #34 – Opportunity #36